Original subtitles

Where to?

Get in.

Thank you.

Four Nights of a Dreamer

First Night

Leave me alone.

- Don't touch me. - Don't stay there.

Quick.

What's wrong?

Give me your hand. I'll take you home.

I'll be there, same place.

Under the statue of Henri IV. Tomorrow, same time.

I'll have to. I could not help it.

Second night

Do you know why I came?

No.

We have to be very clever.

I've never done anything as clever.

I don't know you. Sit down and tell me your story.

My story? I have no story.

I see no one. Speak to no one.

Story of Jacques.

I live at 6, Rue Antoine-Dubois.

A kind of loft on the second floor.

How many times I was in love.

With who?

With no one, an ideal, the woman in my dream.

That's stupid.

Yes. And God sends an angel to show me the way.

To reconcile me with myself.

In the park we walk together hand in hand.

Hoping and losing hope.

The castle is strange.

She's there half the year with her old husband.

He's silent and boring and scares us a little.

But our love is pure and innocent.

Pure and innocent.

Pure and innocent.

I find her again in Venice.

Isn't it her, in this palace of lights and music?

It is. She is dancing.

She is dancing.

She sees me. We leap onto the balcony.

She tears her mask off and trembling she whispers in my ear:

"Jacques, I am free."

Ended are the sorrows of the ancestral castle,

of the old garden, of the old husband.

In the park we walk together, hand in hand.

Hoping and losing hope.

The castle is strange.

She's there half the year with her old husband.

He's silent and boring and scares us a little.

But our love is pure and innocent.

I find her again in Venice.

Jacques, do you recognize me?

Yes.

The Art School.

Of course.

Craftsmanship is dead.

Chardin's brioche,

Manet's peonies.

Van Gogh's chairs and clodhoppers, it's all over.

I am for a mature art, open to its time.

Which does not burst in contact with Nature

but simply is a meeting of the painter and a concept.

Do you understand?

No thank you, really.

What's crucial is not the object, not the painter,

but the gesture which lifts the presence from the object

and is suspended in a space which delimits it

and in fact supports it. Do you understand?

Not the object there, not the painter there,

but the painter and the object which are not there.

Their visible disappearances make the canvas.

A canvas sensually structured

as to form an enlightening and specifically solid whole.

Do you understand?

Look at these spots.

Did you make them?

Yes. And the smaller they are,

the larger the world they define by suggestion.

One does not see the spots.

One sees everything that is not there. Perforce.

Thus, we're obliged, we painters,

to re-think fundamentally the problems of art

by updating, as it should, the process of its functional drift.

I must go now.

See you soon.

For sure?

For sure.

In the park we walk together hand in hand.

Hoping and losing hope.

The castle is strange.

She's there half the year with her old husband.

He's silent and boring and scares us a little.

But our love is pure and innocent.

I find her again in Venice.

Isn't it her, in this palace of lights and music?

It is. She is dancing.

- Is that your life? - Yes.

But yesterday you came straight to me.

I was happy yesterday.

It was Sunday and I had been in the country.

You are not happy every day?

Some days are horrible,

when it seems I cannot go on living.

I see people in turmoil and rage,

while my dream becomes flat and boring.

Then I realize that all that was so dear to me never existed.

There is nothing to regret.

What I have lost is a perfect zero.

Stop to make me feel sorry for you and give me a piece of advice.

Story of Marthe

I live with my mother where you know.

We barely exist on my father's alimony.

Every year we rent out a room next to mine in the corridor.

How is he? Nice? Pleasant?

What is that?

What is that?

Books lent to us by the boarder.

Confess that you want me to marry. - Me? Why?

Because you always rent out to men.

Be careful, Marthe. With or without a pretext of marriage,

men know how to manoeuvre girls and when they've had enough...

I know, I know, mum. They dump them.

Are you the young girl?

Let me go down. What are you doing?

Do you want to go to the movies with me tonight?

Don't answer. We'll go where you want.

Alright?

It's not nice of you.

She's tough.

The Bonds of Love

Who got you these seats?

- Guess. - Him?

- Is he going too? - No.

Let's not go. It's a nuisance.

Marthe, my dear, he deprived himself for us.

- A film premiere is boring. - Not always.

We have fallen into a trap.

Let's go. Come.

We can't.

A trap?

A trick. He wanted to punish me.

Who did?

The boarder who got us the seats.

Punish you for what?

For not going to the cinema with him on the first night.

- You think so? - He confessed to me later.

I thought we'd see him more often.

But mother, I never saw him.

He's leaving and you told me nothing.

- I thought you knew. - Me?

Yes, I forgot.

Take me with you.

But...

You must take me with you.

- Are you going? - Yes.

- Far away? - To Yale in America. I have a fellowship.

I'm bored here. Let me come with you.

It's impossible.

Martha, my dear.

How would we live?

I don't know.

I swear to you, when I return...

If I am fit to be married...

And if you still love me...

In a year from now, here,

day for day, same time.

It has been a year.

He returned three days ago. But he didn't come as promised.

How do you know?

I know. It's the third day.

What if I went and talked to him?

Is it possible?

Not really, but write him a letter.

I can't and I don't want to force him.

You have the right to.

He tied himself with a promise

and left you entirely free,

even to refuse.

How would you write the letter?

Tell him, I don't know,

that for a year you lived with hope,

that you were happy

but that now the doubt is unbearable.

Tell him:

"I don't blame you if you have forgotten me..."

Why the formal "vous"?

"I don't blame you if you have forgotten me"

"but I know you are incapable"

"of causing such pain"

"to the one who loved you so and still loves you."

It's absolutely right.

Thank you, thank you.

He agreed that as soon as he'd arrive,

he'd let my friends know.

I can't go there. Be kind, deliver my letter to them,

they'll forward it to him.

If there is an answer, bring it to me tomorrow night at nine.

But the letter, you must write it.

It can't be done 'til after tomorrow.

Here's the letter.

With the address for delivery.

See you tomorrow. If it rains...

But it won't rain.

Third Night

It's done. I delivered your letter.

Do you know why I'm so glad?

Why do I love you so much today?

I love you because you're not in love with me.

You're so sweet.

When I am married, we'll be more than brother and sister.

I will love you almost as much as him.

You say that because you are nervous and afraid.

You believe he will not come.

If I believed that I would cry.

You are afraid.

Don't worry. We'll welcome him together.

I want him to see how much we love each other.

How much we love each other.

You know what happened to me today?

First I did what you asked me.

At home, I worked and it was going well.

Then I threw myself on the bed.

Suddenly time stopped.

And I had only one feeling, one desire.

And then a musical phrase,

heard long ago and forgotten.

Soft, marvelous...

I felt like I had waited all my life for that moment

and now...

What do you mean?

Eleven.

Don't cry.

If he couldn't come and he answers in writing,

his letter won't arrive until tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll go to your friends and let you know.

You don't mind?

There are still a thousand possibilities.

It's true, I hadn't thought of that.

What a little girl you are.

It's because of you that I cw.

Why isn't he you?

Not made like you?

You're more clever and more kind than he,

but it is him I love.

Of course, I don't know him that well yet.

But how he looked at me

when I came to his room with my bag.

You love him more than anything.

More than yourself.

Maybe.

But why does a man always have something to hide?

Why not just say what is in one's heart,

as if afraid of wasting feelings

by revealing them too quickly.

There may be many reasons.

You're not like the others.

I feel that you give up something for me.

How can I tell you?

It's silly. I don't know.

But I'd so much want you to be happy.

What you've told me about your dreamer is false.

You're very different from what you pretend to be.

If one day you fall in love, she will be happy. I know it.

He will not come today.

It is too late already.

He will come tomorrow.

Now we are bound together forever.

Marthe, Marthe...

Tomorrow maybe.

Maybe.

Fourth night

Still nothing?

He hasn't come to see you?

He can do what he wants, I don't give a damn.

Don't stay there. Come.

Don't tell me he'll come. He will not.

And why? Why?

Was there anything wrong in my letter?

And to think I was the one who wanted him.

It's not possible. We are mistaken.

He doesn't know yet. He hasn't received the letter.

Or maybe someone spoke badly of me.

Anyway, not another word. No more letter.

Enough. I don't love him anymore. I'll forget him.

You wouldn't have behaved like that

with the one who had come to you.

You'd think her unable to defend herself

against her love for you.

She is innocent. Yes, innocent. She didn't do anything.

What's the matter?

I love you. That's the matter.

I knew it but I thought it wasn't serious.

I can't help it. It's not my fault.

Something tells me I'm right.

Because I could never hurt you.

I'll always be your friend.

Sit down.

No, I'll go.

You were the first to talk of love.

You're the guilty one.

Stay.

To say what?

Come on, speak.

To say that I believed you didn't still love him?

Even if you'd gone on loving this man,

I'd have loved you secretly.

What have you done to me?

Let's go.

Listen, since he abandoned me and forgot me

and although I still love him, I won't cheat on you.

Listen to me.

How could I have been so careless? So blind and stupid?

Let's part. I only torment you.

I want to leave.

One second. You can wait one second.

Wait for what?

I love him. But it'll pass. It must pass.

Tonight will end it.

I hate him, he doesn't give a damn about me.

You love me. He never did.

I love you as you love me.

I had told you that before. You remember?

If I love you, it's because you are superior to him.

Let's go in.

I was true to my love.

For a whole year I have loved him.

And I was never unfaithful.

He didn't respect me.

I don't love him.

Because I can only love what I esteem and admire.

It's better than if I had been wrong

and learnt later who he really is.

Maybe my love was only an illusion

because I was under my mother's thumb

and I wanted to get away from home.

What I mean, Jacques,

is that although I love him...

No, although I have loved him...

If despite that you can still push him out of my heart,

if you can love me

as much as you do today,

then...

Then...

Are you happy?

Let's go to the drugstore.

We must go now. It's time.

Don't leave your loft but come live with us. You'll be our boarder.

The room is free.

Look at the moon.

Look.

Is it you, Marthe?

Who is it?

It's him.

She sees me from afar. She flies towards me.

The night is luminous, marvelous.

The only such night in a lifetime.

All is forgotten in an enthusiastic cry.

Separation, pain, tears.

"Jacques, forgive me for being wrong."

"I was blind."

"I hurt you as I hurt myself."

"I have suffered for you a thousand deaths."

"But it's you I love."

I am astounded, elated.

O Marthe, what strength makes your eyes shine with such a flame?

And lights your face with such a smile?

Thank you for your love.

And be blessed for the happiness you bring me.

She sees me from afar. She flies towards me.

The night is luminous, marvelous.

The only such night in a lifetime.

All is forgotten in an enthusiastic cry.

Separation, pain, tears.

"Jacques, forgive me for being wrong."

"I was blind."

"I hurt you as I hurt myself."

"I have suffered for you a thousand deaths."

"But it's you I love."

I am astounded, elated.

O Marthe, what strength makes your eyes shine with such a flame?

And lights your face with such a smile?

Thank you for your love.

And be blessed for the happiness you bring me.